Editor’s Note: Arrias was at The Farm to assist in Downsizing the Decades. His Muse is clear on this one.

– Vic

Author’s Note: My muse hit me on the head on the way home last Sunday, and I stopped and wrote down one line and then continued on home and lost the string… it popped back in this morning…

– Arrias

Sitting With a Shipmate

Sitting with an old shipmate,
We’ve a long-treasured past,
Sorting through some old sea chests,
Four decades ‘round the mast.

Six continents and seven seas,
Around and around we went,
Forgotten trophies of forgotten wars,
But it was a life well spent!

Paintings, knives, a cutlass or two,
A Pirate’s vest, Scarves of silk,
Trinkets from a hundred ports,
Some memories as sweet as mother’s milk.

Bottles shared, a game of chance,
A fistfight in a tavern,
A long ago swim in the Red Sea,
Stealing into some sheikh’s desert cavern.

A few things of value, many baubles,
A favorite rifle, a well built pistol,
An old, issued blanket, a faded shirt,
Inexpensive and now broken crystal.

But the stories attached to each,
Long days and longer nights,
Crises and wars, standing watch,
And from the bridge – dawn’s first light.

And so a thousand little trinkets,
But the memories that they hold,
Friendships more precious than rarest gems,
Priceless memories that can never be sold.

Copyright 2022 Arrias
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